Mutant Beach

Tom Swift IV #11

by Victor Appleton, Robert E. Vardeman

Something fishy is going on down at Laguna Pequena Beach. The ocean has turned into an aquatic nightmare. A grotesque giant squid, a hideous herring with razor sharp teeth, and a gruesome fifty-foot shark have laid siege to the shore - and many lay the blame on Tom Swift's latest oceanic research!

Genres: Science Fiction

149 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1992

About the author

Victor Appleton was a house pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and its successors, most famous for being associated with the Tom Swift series of books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_...

The character of Tom Swift was conceived in 1910 by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book-packaging company. Stratemeyer invented the series to capitalize on the market for children's science adventure. The Syndicate's authors created the Tom Swift books by first preparing an outline with all the plot elements, followed by drafting and editing the detailed manuscript. The books were published under the house name of Victor Appleton. Edward Stratemeyer and Howard Garis wrote most of the volumes in the original series; Stratemeyer's daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, wrote the last three volumes. The first Tom Swift series ended in 1941.
In 1954, Harriet Adams created the Tom Swift, Jr., series, which was published under the name "Victor Appleton II". Most titles were outlined and plotted by Adams. The texts were written by various writers, among them William Dougherty, John Almquist, Richard Sklar, James Duncan Lawrence, Tom Mulvey and Richard McKenna. The Tom Swift, Jr., series ended in 1971.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift

Reviews

[Terry Mulcahy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a Tom Swift story all right; fast paced and full of dangerous men, a shady woman, and human growth hormone. The DNA science appears accuratly depicted, and that was the essential element of Tom Swift stories - the science. Of course, Tom is doing a little experimentation himself, and is understandably blamed for some releases of growth hormone, threatening not only his new projects, but putting all of Swift Enterprises under a cloud of suspicion and threat of closure. Of course, everything is quickly resolved, the bad guys are caught, the woman is cleared of wrongdoing, but leaves town before she and Tom give in to their own normal human hormones. And the boy genius goes back to saving the world while polishing his surfing skills.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bunch of mutant animals attack beachgoers, and Swift Enterprises is blamed. Tom has to investigate and clear his family's good name. The culprit ends up being a mad scientist named Dr. Loew, and he has a cute daughter named Melanie who doubles as Tom's love interest and eventually helps him stop her father. While this is not the best book of the series in terms of story, science or characters, this is definitely the most terrifying book of the series. The two scariest scenes were Dr. Loew's giant bodyguards on a rampage, and Dr. Loew's fight to the death, against a mutant shark covered with rotting flesh and human legs. If you like scary action, you'll enjoy it. If you're reading the series for the science, you might not like it as much.

[Jennifer Abella · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5. I liked this series as a kid, less so as an adult but whatevs. Fun to see the cool tech this science whiz kid had in 1992: hgh (Tom was experimenting on fish), video conferencing, self-driving and hybrid cars, droids and voice recognition.

[Phil · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was back to the unbelievable part of the science fiction world. From mutant sharks with legs to mad scientists, this book is as cliche as they come. Also, Tom Swift decides to take on the evil scientist himself instead of telling the authorities and handing the situation the safe, and legal, way. It all ends bad, and no one is surprised.

Also, the text could have used a quick editing as several times a few phrases are repeated verbatim when a simple rewrite could have fixed the redundancy.

The writing was clumsy and the science was sub par making Mutant Beach definitely one of the lamer Tom Swift books.

[Christopher Brehm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good